Legal title

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Appears to be lawful

Titles

“But the thing displeased Samuel, when they said, Give us a king to judge us. And Samuel prayed unto the LORD.” (1 Samuel 8:6)

William of Normandy came to England to collect a disputed debt owed to him by Harold. He did not conquer and seize all of England, but only Harold and his properties, duties, and obligations (and those hereditaments of the freemen who had fought along side Harold in his attempt to avoid payment to William). Also, from his assumed position, William “insisted that he was the fountainhead of justice” and began to consolidate and expand his position and authority by waging war against all who opposed his claim to Harold’s limited kingly dominion.[1] Many changes were brought about as a result of William’s strong presence. He opened the door to customs and forms of law that had no foothold in the land of the Anglos since the fall of the Roman Empire. He instituted a survey of all the land that fell under his sword by right of trial by conquest. This was done for the purpose of collecting an excise or tribute tax on the land of those defeated landowners who were then forced to take an oath of fealty and bind their allegiance and lands to William. The people of England called the book that included these subject lands the “Doomsday Book” and it is still called that to this day.

  • “Wherefore say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Ye eat with the blood, and lift up your eyes toward your idols, and shed blood: and shall ye possess the land?” (Ezekiel 33:25)

With this growing loss of freehold titles in land, the “large numbers of freemen”, who were so necessary for the administration of the Common Law of Land, were no longer available.

  • “Ye stand upon your sword, ye work abomination, and ye defile every one his neighbour’s wife: and shall ye possess the land?” (Ezekiel 33:26)

A legal title is not a freehold, lawful, or a fee simple title. Were the remaining freehold titles in land lost by conquest or by other means?

“Towns and boroughs act as if persons.”[2]

Many followed William, establishing the concepts of towns and cities, which had been traditionally shunned by the Anglos, along with other customs of business, and a loyalty to their homeland that opened a freer avenue for the establishment of commerce.

  • “...they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top [may reach] unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth. (Ge. 11:4)
  • "And as for the people, he removed them to cities from [one] end of the borders of Egypt even to the end thereof.” (Ge. 47:21)

The law of the Anglo-Saxons still remained intact, but not for those who fell subject to William and his successors. The two systems lived side by side in a manner similar to the two jurisdictional systems of law used in the Roman Empire following their own Roman civil war.

The “common law” is “distinguished from law created by the enactment of legislatures,” and it “comprises the body of those principles and rules of action, relating to the government and security of persons and property, which derive their authority solely from usages and customs of immemorial antiquity…” And “as concerns its force and authority in the United States, the phrase designates that portion of the common law of England which had been adopted and was in force here at the time of the Revolution”[3]

  • “Liberi. In Saxon Law - Freeman; the possessors of allodial lands.”[4]

The common law is dependent upon “large numbers of freemen” who can decide both fact and law, as distinguished from the jurors of the United States today, who have lost their allodial land through neglect and ignorance. Today’s jurors as U.S. citizens are subject to the administration of government. They are almost always sworn to abide by the decrees of the legislature before they take to their seat as jurors, which allows them to judge only the facts of a case, leaving the determination of law in the hands of the legislature and the administering professional judges. Is this the way it was in the beginning?

  • “Liber homo. A free man; a freeman lawfully competent to act as juror.[5]

An allodial proprietor, as distinguished from a vassal or feudatory.”[6]

The original settlers and founders of this republic called the Americas, had come here fleeing the king’s justice saying, ‘Farewell, Rome. Farewell, Babylon’.[7] Here, the individual had access to a free-dominion by the relinquishment, in charter, of the right of the king to make law without consent. In the case of the American colonies, which were republics and were guaranteed by contract with the king that no law could be made “except by the consent of the freeman,” there was a clear consideration, as there was with Harold, the last Anglo-Saxon king in England. The king of England was to give the colonies the benefit of his protection from “foreign invasion” and, in exchange, he could impose only excise (use) taxes and tariffs (taxes on foreign trade), as well as regulate the equitable practice of business, for which there were no remedies at the common law.

The extent of the legal authority of the king of Britain in the Americas was limited. It was his usurpation (seizing a use) of rights that were not his that led to the Declaration of Independence, whereby the colonial governments became totally independent states at any dissolution of the charter. As history tells, a dissolution was caused by the king’s breaking of the contract and violating the terms of the agreement. The limited authority and responsibility of the king was then assumed by the colonial governments, who eventually bound themselves together by Articles of Confederation, and later by a constitution which created a legal society with certain limited obligations and privileges to the general populous of the republics.

“The real destroyers of the liberties of the people is he who spreads among them bounties, donations and benefits.” — Plutarch.

Equity

Equity is important because, in a civil society such as the one created by the Constitution, and subsequent acts of government and the people, it is the instrument used to remedy conflicts that arise from certain relations, where plain, adequate, and complete remedy may not be had at law. Equity is used to administer trusts and uses.


Legal Tender

The phrase “legal tender” is found on the paper currencies of the world, including those used by the United States. Blue-sealed certificates, red-sealed United States notes, or green-sealed Federal Reserve notes all state that they are “legal tender for all debts public and private.” For decades, these notes also stated that they were “redeemable in lawful money.” If they were redeemable in lawful money then it should be clear that they are not lawful money. Gold and silver are lawful money, which is used as “payment of debt.”[8]

Legal tender is a legal offer in place of payment of debt and does not lawfully pay a debt. Although it may legally discharge debt, the tender or offer does not pay the debt at law. “There is a distinction between a debt discharged and one paid. When discharged the debt still exists, though divested of its character as a legal obligation during the operation of the discharge. Something of the original vitality of the debt continues to exist…” [9]


Where does this debt continue?

It goes on to say, “…which may be transferred, even though the transferee takes it subject to its disability incident to the discharge. The fact that it carries something which may be a consideration for a new promise to pay, so as to make an otherwise worthless promise a legal obligation, makes it the subject of transfer by assignment.”[10]


“The first farmer was the first man, and all historic nobility rests on possession and use of land.” — Emerson.

Legal Title Defined

A “legal title” is “one cognizable… in a court of law.”[11] “Judicial cognizance” being “judicial notice, or knowledge upon which a judge is bound to act without having it proved in evidence.”[12]

Even more importantly, a legal title is “one which is complete and perfect so far as regards the apparent right of ownership and possession, but which carries no beneficial interest in the property, another person being equitably entitled thereto; in either case, the antithesis of ‘equitable title.’[13]“And many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of. And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you:” (II Pe. 2, 2-3.)

First, we see that a legal title, although it may appear to be a “right of ownership”, “carries no beneficial interest.” If a legal title does not include a right to the beneficial interest, then it does not include a right to the “profit, benefit, or advantage resulting from a contract,” nor does it include “the ownership of an estate.” After all, a beneficial interest is “distinct from the legal ownership.”[14]

In the simplest of terms, a legal title only appears to be a right to ownership, but it is not the “ownership of an estate.” “Take heed to thyself, lest thou make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land whither thou goest, lest it be for a snare in the midst of thee:” (Exodus 34, 12.)

By definition, a legal title is the opposite, or at least the antithesis, of an “equitable title.” An equitable title, as opposed to a legal title, “is a right in the party”, rather than only appearing to be a right. It is “the beneficial interest of one person whom equity regards as the real owner, although the legal title is vested in another.”[15]


Even though you may discharge a debt and obtain legal titles, you still do not have clear and good titles, which “are synonymous; ‘clear title’ meaning that the land is free from incumbrances, ‘good title’ being one free from litigation, palpable defects, and grave doubts, comprising both legal and equitable titles and fairly deducible of record.”[16]


“Whoso causeth the righteous to go astray in an evil way, he shall fall himself into his own pit: but the upright shall have good [things] in possession.” (Proverbs 28:10)

This division of true title into a legal title on one hand verses an equitable title on the other is called equitable conversion. Equitable conversion is a “Constructive conversion.”

CONVERSION is an, “alteration, interchange, metamorphosis, passage, reconstruction....”[17]

BENEFICIAL INTEREST is the, “Profit, benefit, or advantage resulting from a contract, or the ownership of an estate as distinct from the legal ownership or control.”[18]


BENEFICIAL USE is, “the right to use and enjoy property according to one’s own liking or so as to derive a profit or benefit from it…"[19]

While Americans once came to America to own their own land something else seems to have taken place since that early struggle. “The ultimate ownership of all property is in the State; individual so-called ‘ownership’ is only by virtue of Government, i.e., law, amounting to mere user; and use must be in accordance with law and subordinate to the necessities of the State.”[20]

Footnotes

  1. ↑ See: The History of the Common Law of England by Matthew Hale 1713
  2. ↑ Personæ vice fungitur municipium et decuria. Warner v. Beers, 23 Wend. N.Y. 103,144.
  3. ↑ Black’s Law Dict. (3rd ed.)
  4. ↑ Black’s Law Dict. (3rd Ed.) p.1106.
  5. ↑ Ld. Raym. 417; Kebl. 563.
  6. ↑ Black’s Law Dictionary 3rd Ed. page 1105.
  7. ↑ The Atlantic monthly, Volume 78 By Celia Thaxter, Sarah Orne Jewett, Emily Dickinson. P. 587.
  8. ↑ Black’s Law Dictionary 3rd p 1079.
  9. ↑ Stanek v. White. 172 Minn. 390, 215 N. W. 784.
  10. ↑ Stanek v. White, 172 Minn. 390, 215 N. W. 784.
  11. ↑ Black’s Law Dictionary 3rd p 1734.
  12. ↑ Black’s Law Dictionary 3rd “cognizance” p 346.
  13. ↑ Black’s Law Dictionary 3rd “legal title” p 1734.
  14. ↑ Black’s Law Dictionary 3rd “beneficial Interest” p 206.
  15. ↑ Black’s Law Dictionary 3rd “Equitable Title” p 1734.
  16. ↑ Black’s Law Dictionary 3rd “clear title” p 1733.
  17. ↑ LEGAL THESAURUS by William C. Burton second edition
  18. ↑ Black’s Law Dictionary 3rd p 206
  19. ↑ Black’s Law Dictionary 3rd p 206
  20. ↑ Senate Document No. 43; SENATE RESOLUTION NO. 62 (Pg 9, Para 2) April 17, 1933.

Law
Law | Natural Law | Legal title | Common Law |
Fiction of law | Stare decisis | Jury | Voir dire |
Consent | Contract | Parental contract | Government |
Civil law | Civil Rights | Civil Government | Governments |
No Kings | Canon law | Cities of refuge | Levites |
Citizen | Equity | The Ten Laws | Law of the Maat |
Bastiat's The Law and Two Trees | Trees |
The Occupy Refuge Movement | Clive Bundy | Hammond |
Barcroft | Benefactors | Gods | Jury | Sanhedrin |
Protection | Weightier matters | Social contract | Community Law |
Perfect law of liberty | Power to change | Covet | Rights |
Anarchist | Agorism | Live as if the state does not exist |

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